Ladies & Gents, do you want to improve your performance overnight? Sounds like a spam email for Viagra or someone offering you the latest version of EPO. Conventional wisdom suggests that there are no quick hits in improving your performance in Endurance events (we are not still talking about Viagra folks). Physically this may be legally true, but there is one way of improving your performance if not overnight, then at least very quickly and by a massive margin.
Most of us spend time trying to get fitter, but how much time do you spend trying to get smarter?
This is quite simply the biggest opportunity to improve your results, but how many of us can truly say of our last race that we got the tactics spot on, had no mistakes and couldn’t of done any better. How often do you hear after a race “If I had done…” or “We ran out of time and had to miss…”. Pretty much every race right, and we have all said it. All this comes down to our ability to plan ahead and learn from our mistakes.
Due to the nature of archaic UK laws, our adventure races tend to be variations on a theme, just check out the formats for races such as Open Adventure, Dynamic Adventure, Questars, Rat Race Mean Streets – based on a timed score event with a combination of AR disciplines. Tons of potential for strategy and tactics, get it right that can catapult you up the leaderboard, get it wrong and your Granny could beat you on her shopping bike.
So, I hear you cry, how can I get better at this most vital of AR disciplines?
Well that is what we will be trying to address in the column, but to get your started here are a few things to get you started
Know yourself
One problem with strategy is that what works for one person, doesn’t necessarily work for another. You need to start by better understanding your own strengths and weaknesses. One easy way to do this is to do a bit of analysis of your last event(s). There are a few things you need to work out
How fast?
Work out your average speeds for each discipline and ideally for different terrain. The more you do this, the better you will understand your strengths and what you can achieve. You might find you are better at running on the flat, or on boggy ground. You might find you are better on technical riding than easy trails. The more you can look at the better your understanding will be. Just remember that we are all slower on hilly ground than flat – so you might want to factor climb into it.
Transition
One thing people seem to forget is that the clock doesn’t stop in transition. Why bother trying really hard to knocking 5 mins of your 10 k time if you spend an hour with your feet up eating lunch. Before your next race, work out how you can do your transition as fast as possible, best way is to treat it as a game – how low can you go?
Follow the general principal of doing as little as possible in transition, ask yourself – Do I need to eat in transition? Do I always need to change all my clothes? Do I have to wear the pink tutu on the bike? (Hint: the answer is no to all these).
You will be amazed how much you can save.
Could you improve your route choice (hint: the answer is invariably yes)?
Look at the route you chose and see if you could do better, to make it more fun, treat it as a game, work out what distance you covered and then try to work out a route that would of scored you more points (or a shorter route that would of scored the same). Chances are you can, if you can’t then you probably aren’t looking hard enough!
What did I do wrong?
Work out where you made any errors, mistakes or misjudgements then ask yourself – how could I have done better. Questions like – Did I use the best terrain or should I of had that 5th pint in the pub are good ones.
Equipment Failures
How many times do you hear, “If we hadn’t got those punctures/broken the chain/snapped the frame* then we would of scored more/won/done better than you*”. (*Delete as appropriate), Most equipment failures are caused by bad maintenance, not “Sodit” the AR god of Kit Failure. Make sure your kit, especially your bike is in good working order, make sure you carry appropriate spares and above all know how to fix problems – or be able to smile sweetly enough to get someone to fix it for you.
Once armed with a bit more knowledge about your pacing, what type of errors you usually make, well maintained kit and an improved transition strategy you can approach your next event with more confidence and a better sense of purpose.
What you do with this at the race we will be covering next time……
